AllFreeNovel
Share Us
While Natharius isn’t looking, I rummage around in my enchanted satchel until I find the potion I’m looking for. The vial is cold to the touch, thanks to bright blue liquid inside. Ice Honey is one of the most dangerous potions Nolderan’s alchemists manufacture, since drinking too much can freeze your heart. It’s also incredibly addictive. The Arcanium recommends only taking a small dose for a few days at a time and to never take it with any other potions, in case there are adverse side effects. I’m not sure whether the sleeping potion has yet left my system, and I’ll need to take more tonight if I wish to sleep without Arluin intruding in my dreams, but I don’t hesitate to pull out the small wooden cork and take a small sip. What choice do I have? I can barely walk as it is, and once our horse has had sufficient rest, we’ll be riding until nightfall.
The potion is cool and sweet as it slips down my throat. I opt to drink a small amount and hope it’ll be enough to take the edge off my pain. I return the vial to my satchel before the Void Prince can notice and lean against the oak’s trunk, its damp bark pressing into my back.
Zephyr growls above me. It sounds like one of his hungry growls, even though I already fed him this morning before we left the tavern.
I hold out my hand, and aether blooms. “Crysanthius.” The magic solidifies. Zephyr swoops down and gobbles up all the crystals faster than I can blink.
When our mare has had her fill of water from the stream, Natharius leads her up the bank and allows her to graze on the grass. I’m not sure how she finds any fresh grass to nibble on, since the ground is so clogged with mud, but she seems to manage. Natharius holds her reins, keeping them slack enough while she grazes, and doesn’t tie her up to join me under the shelter of the oak tree. I can’t say I mind. Perhaps he wants a break from me as much as I do from him. I watch him from the corner of my eye. The rain seems to hit him and roll straight off, barely touching him at all. Even the rain is repulsed by his murderous aura.
We leave half an hour later, and this time I manage to mount by myself, though Natharius has to steady me before climbing onto the saddle himself. Then we ride across Tirith’s plains, our horse’s hooves splashing through the muddy puddles. Thanks to the Ice Honey I took, the pain in my leg fades to a dull ache and riding isn’t quite as unbearable.
By nightfall, the rain relents. We stop when the sky is pitch black, and the moon is peeking through the thick clouds. Though the drizzle has ceased, the ground is too wet to sleep on, and we venture from the road in search of shelter.
It takes us another hour before we find a cave wedged into the hillside, and we dismount to lead our mare up its narrow slope. The cave overlooks a forest to our left, and we’re so high up the treetops stretch on around us like a leafy sea.
Natharius ties our horse near the cave’s entrance, and we head inside. It reaches farther than I thought, but it’s too dark for me to see how deep it is. The steady drip of water echoes all around.
“Iluminos.” I raise my fingers and aether bursts from them. The orb radiates through the cave, making the stone glisten like diamonds. Bats swarm from the very back, and Zephyr ducks behind me as they flap around the cave. I lower the orb until the bats settle down. Aside from them and a few rats, there’s nothing else. While I’m fond of neither, it isn’t as bad as I feared. I was worrying that there might be a large grizzly sleeping somewhere in here.
I crouch and press my palm to the stone. It’s cold, and is made even more so by the constant draft blowing in, but it’s better than sleeping in mud. And if we can light a fire, it’ll be warm enough. While I can conjure flames with my magic, they’ll soon burn out with no fuel and I can’t cast the spell while sleeping. The same goes for lighting an internal flame to warm myself.
“We should find some firewood,” I say to Natharius, though the campfire will be for my benefit alone. Since demons don’t need to eat or sleep, I doubt the cold bothers them.
“Good luck finding any. Everything will be soaked through from the rain.”
“I can dry it out. That won’t require much magic.”
Natharius shrugs.
I head out of the cave and pause at its entrance. Zephyr follows me. With the forest right beneath us, it should be easy enough to find some fallen wood. The main issue will be how many trips it’ll take me to bring back enough to build a campfire. Zephyr will be able to bring some as well, but it’ll take us a while without Natharius’s help.
I glance back to where Natharius leans against a stone wall. “You’ll help too.”
He says nothing.
“You can either help out of your own will, or I can issue it as a command—though I don’t imagine the constant compulsion is pleasant. The choice is yours.”
He glares at me but peels himself from the wall and joins us at the cave’s entrance. “It’s a rather long way down,” he says, peering over the edge at the forest beneath. “Especially for your mortal legs.”
“Then it’s a good job I didn’t intend to use my legs.” With that, I weave aether into air magic. “Nimbus.” At my command, the spell expands into a cloud and wraps around my feet. Then I jump off the edge. Zephyr dives after me.
Gravity doesn’t take a hold of me, thanks to my flight spell. Instead, I slowly drift down toward the trees and steer my cloud to avoid being speared by sharp branches. When I look up at the cave, Natharius has assumed his demonic form—complete with wings and horns and hooves. His size doesn’t change, but he looks every bit as monstrous as when I first summoned him. His draconic wings spread open, and he too leaps off the edge.
He soars through the air, his wings beating back and forth. Though it isn’t a competition, I have the sudden urge to fly faster than him and reach the ground first. I urge my cloud to descend quicker, narrowly avoiding the branches as I weave through the thick canopy of treetops. I’m certain the Void Prince is flying faster, too.
But I can’t tell who wins, since we both land at what appears to be exactly the same time. And the winner could also very well be Zephyr.
Natharius folds away his wings and, without a word, stalks off through the trees in search of firewood.
I wave my hand to dismiss my cloud and beckon for Zephyr to follow me. “Let’s see what we can find.”
We begin our search and soon find plenty of branches and logs. Most are muddy and soaked through, but some are a little drier since the rain didn’t reach them. Zephyr blows a cloud of aether around his firewood, and they float up through the air with him. I try a similar technique, but extend the cloud around me to also include my branches. It requires more concentration than on the way down here, especially while taking care not to crash the wood into any trees and have it all fall everywhere. And trying to avoid hitting my head isn’t easy, either.
Luckily, I make it back to the top without hitting myself or losing all my firewood. I’m the last to return. Both Natharius and Zephyr have deposited their wood at the center of the cave. I blow mine into the same heap and kneel before it as I cast the spellcalidato dry the wood. Our pile is hefty and it’ll take a while to get through, so I touch two branches at a time as I speak the spell-word. My magic instantly evaporates the moisture, and steam fills the cave.
When I’m done, I heap all the firewood together and let flames spark in my fingers. “Ignis.”The wood catches fire. It burns at a steady rate, providing enough warmth without burning all at once.
I flip open my satchel and search for the food I bundled up. I don’t bother offering Natharius any, but Zephyr comes sniffing for more aether crystals and I indulge him.
